Production Level Vac Fixture

[Jim Becker]

Clearly, an ATC is desirable for production work. The FTC I mentioned is more for convenience and consistency and I'm thrilled I have it. My point, however, is that if you can optimize the cutting order so that you minimize tool changes, there will be some level of time advantage. It may be only a little; it may be a lot. Sometimes one can't go as far as one might want to because, for example, one might need one tool early in the operation to "do something" but later need the same tool for the final cut-out. I will say that I've been trying to get into the habit of being really anal about this and it has had noticeable impact on how long things take, even in my learning process. I always ask myself, "can I do these operations with the same tool all together without causing an issue with the overall result" and it's been surprising about how many times I can do that. The last thing I do before I write out the cutting file is organize/order the toolpaths to accomplish that as best as I can.

[Mark Bolton]

Exactly... getting kooky about it can actually cost you more time and mistakes. I'm more to the point of just do the best.you can while still producing. The minuscia will come.with time and experience. Plus... just getting to watch one of these things do what they do is mesmerizing lol

[Brad Shipton]

Jim, I hope you did not think I was being negative. I was mainly pointing out the subtle difference. I rarely ever final size something before I slap it on the table. I find it easier to let the machine look after that and then I do not have to pay too much attention to my 0,0 coordinate. I know the coordinate of every square on my table, but if I want to be less than 0.025", then I use a setup gauge to check my 0,0. The FTC seems like a good option. Somedays I am not overly patient and I know I might get frustrated changing out bits. That was the main reason I went for the ATC.

[Jim Becker]

I understand, Brad, and I apologize if I came off in the wrong way myself. I guess that Adam (and I) are thinking along the terms of having a standard "product" here that requires personalization. That's why I built my vacuum fixture for the stall plates. I have a stack of Corian blanks on the shelf that I already cut out using an array toolpath and as as I get an order, I slap one on the fixture and cut the personalization, do the paint thing in the v-groves, sand and polish, and then ship it out. Profiling and personalization en-mass isn't going to work for my particular product as I can get much better yield from the expensive Corian by pre-cutting the blanks. For Adam, he needs to run a whole bunch of plaques that are solid stock and easy to prepare by "traditional" means prior to the CNC personalization work. But in his case, it indeed would be an easy option to modify his hold-down so he could place "rough blanks" on the vacuum positions and profile them, too, since his is more of a production run situation. It would be more like the "puck" solution, but in a fixture that allows for cutting around the edges of the workpieces. So many ways to do stuff...it's mind-boggling sometimes!